The Past, Present, and Future of Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies: An Invitation to Teachers, Researchers, and Communities

In this Voices: Reflective Accounts of Education essay, Gloria Ladson-Billings, Django Paris, H. Samy Alim, and Na’ilah Suad Nasir speak to the past, present, and future of culturally sustaining pedagogies. This dialogue marks the tenth anniversary of the Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies Symposium, published in the Harvard Educational Review in 2014, where the authors illustrated how culturally relevant, sustaining, and revitalizing pedagogies are part of a long tradition seeking to center culture and justice in teaching and learning. This conversation also builds on dialogues initiated by HER in 2017 on cross-pollinating culturally sustaining pedagogy with disability studies. In this current dialogue, which has been edited for publication, the authors reflect on key developments in the field over the past ten years and engage with culturally sustaining pedagogy in light of ongoing global movements and issues of the current moment. They offer directions forward for research and practice, including rethinking culture and theorizing alongside communities.